It is often desirable to attach various accessories and devices to clothing. For example, it is desirable to attach accessories such as jewelry to clothing for the purpose of displaying the accessory. It is also often desirable to attach a device to clothing for a special purpose. For example, individuals in the medical profession (such as dentists, hygienists, doctors, and nurses) and other professions using protective clothing (for example, fire and rescue personnel) commonly use gloves or long-sleeved exterior clothing which would obscure a watch worn on the person's wrist. It is therefore sometimes desirable to attach a watch to the exterior of a person's clothing to give the person ready access to the watch without having to remove gloves or pull back a covering sleeve of a garment. Different types of attaching means have been invented for this purpose. An example of such an attaching means is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,610,877 .
The attaching devices known in the art, however, suffer from several deficiencies. First, many of the attaching devices harm the fabric they are attach to by puncturing the fabric or permanently altering the fabric. Neither of these results is desirable because it is expected that a person may desire to attach a device to fabric on certain occasions and not on other occasions. It is undesirable to have the fabric damaged so that the fabric could not be worn without a device attached to cover up any permanent mark made by the attaching device.
Yet another deficiency of the known devices is that they are unable to adapt to fabric of various thicknesses. For example, many of the known devices rely on wedging fabric between the object to be attached to the fabric and some structure located behind the fabric. Typically, the gap between the object and the structure located behind the fabric will only accommodate a small range of fabric thicknesses. If the gap is made relatively large to accommodate thick fabrics, it will not hold an object on thinner fabrics. Likewise, a gap which accommodates a thin fabric will not be able to accept a thicker fabric. It is therefore desirable to have a device for attaching objects to fabrics of a greater range of thicknesses.